“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” – Graduation day

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a surprisingly violent film that shows how far we’ve come in ten years. I remember a climactic scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) in which Ron (Rupert Grint) is thrown off a horse during a life-size chess game, and at the time that seemed like an especially dark turn for such young characters. But compare that to an early scene in this film in which Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) steps over a roomful of bloody corpses. Or one where he sics his giant snake on an underling’s neck. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Nevertheless, this is a satisfying conclusion to the decade-long Harry Potter saga, though it bears little resemblance to any of the films that came before it; after seven films of wands, spells, cloaks, owls, elves, and jelly beans, here we have the Invasion of Normandy. I think director David Yates owes a debt to Peter Jackson; he stages exciting battle scenes distinguished by opulent production design, panoramic shots, and imaginative visual effects, but as the forces of evil descend upon the forces of good, you’d be forgiven if you start to mistake Hogwarts for Helm’s Deep.

Ralph Fiennes, as Lord Voledmort

The laborious exposition fromDeathly Hallows: Part 1 is mostly out of the way, setting up our heroes for a fetch quest to retrieve some MacGuffins, which they must destroy with some other MacGuffins. Specifically, Ron, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), and Hermione (Emma Watson) must find Voldemort’s remaining horcruxes – the pieces of the dark Lord’s soul that must be dealt with before they can kill him – and then destroy them using either the Sword of Gryffindor or the tooth of a snake, whichever is handy. All that is just phlebotinum, which doesn’t really matter, so I wish the screenplay weren’t so preoccupied with it; there’s an even better movie to be made more greatly emphasizing the human element if only you could get those hallows and horcruxes out of the way. Besides, the hallows turn out not to be as crucial as they were made out to be in the previous film, and that poor, careless Voldemort – he left bits of his soul lying around like dirty socks before laundry day.

The film is at its best when the emotional stakes are the focus; decisions and sacrifices must be made, and not everyone makes it out alive. It’s a fact Hollywood seems willfully ignorant of sometimes, that big action set pieces are made exciting not just by the pyrotechnics involved but by the people involved. We’re invested in the action sequences in this film precisely because we’ve been made to care about these characters over the past ten years. Also, the scenes are not edited into microsecond chunks of incoherent mayhem – that helps too.

I was especially impressed by the expanded role of Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), who has been mostly a bumbling background player in previous films, but the graciousness of puberty has turned him into a handsome Hogwarts everyman, and the courage he demonstrates here is more inspiring than Harry’s precisely because Neville isn’t the Chosen One. (Also, one of Harry’s acts of courage turns out to be kind of a cheat.)

Some of the best moments in the series can be found in this film, though Deathly Hallows: Part 2 doesn’t cohere quite as well as what I consider the high-water marks of the series, Goblet of Fire andHalf-Blood Prince. It can’t be said of many movie franchises that I’ve liked every installment, especially franchises that have run this long – George Lucas, I’m looking at you – but there you have it. Harry Potter was a good series of films, artful, ambitious, sometimes great. Maybe one day I’ll read the books.

“Deathly Hallows: Part 2 doesn’t cohere quite as well as what I consider the high-water marks of the series, Goblet of Fire and Half-Blood Prince.”

You just named (IMHO) the two worst films in the Harry Potter Series. Goblet of Fire was a soap opera with magic and hormones flying around like ping-pong balls. Half-blood Prince was a romantic-comedy film which BUTCHERED a very non-comedic book (although I understand you’ve never read them).

GoF gets a couple of points for the fantastic Voldemort sequence.
Half-Blood Prince was a complete waste of time. I repeat, A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. I loved that book. I worshipped that book and then… I don’t know what got into Kloves’s head, to tell you the truth.

They could have toned down the romance, EXTERMINATED the comedy (leaving a couple of bits behind, like the did with the last 2 films) and been more faithful to the books. The battle in hogwarts in HBP was like 1minute long, and you can’t even call it a battle. HBP’s points come from that great idea to have everyone raise their wands and destroy the dark mark in mourning.

Maybe these movies appeal best to teenage girls (huhu… twilight girls) (GoF even had robert pattinson) in them.

I didn’t like GoF that much either, but mainly because of the weakening of the female characters.

this weakness continued to the end, with Hermione becoming so ever secondary / amazed by Ron,

i really enjoyed the last part. On re watching part 1, I’m left of the view that it should have been combined with part 2 as it focused too much time on harry, ron and hermione at the expense of the other characters.

the last part was much better.

i read the books, but must have fogetten bits if the movie was a true reflection.

overall a great series, with the odd miss but i’d watch them all again at some stage,
marcus

I really don’t understand why some people didn’t like Part 1. Some called it even BORING!!! Every time I hear that I’m like “did you see the same movie as I did?”
I thought Part 1 was a beautiful refelction on who the characters are. On their relationships… on their strenghts and weaknesses. And I think that Emma Watson’s stellar performance in this film was crystallized in that one line. “Maybe we should just stay here, harry… and grow old…”

What a great film indeed. Faithful to the books, faithful to the characters. Steve Klove’s best work. I think that Part 1 is the best of the series, followed by Prisoner of Azkaban (what a great movie that was too).